I notice that there are a lot of great posts on here about good palmistry books, but I don't see much on the bad ones (unless I'm just not seeing it). The reason I mention this is because I think it would be helpful to know some of the titles to avoid and take with a grain of salt - e.g. those older types that predict disaster and doom.

Would love to hear from you guys about any titles you've run across that are like this.

Ah yes, I've seen that actually. Are there only 5 books in the controversial section?

Just a few things:

It might be interesting to see if there are any more detailed commentaries on what makes them controversial.

Not surprising to see the ol' Comte on there. I've read in numerous places that he has been discredited, though mostly as a result of plagiarizing. Though he also appears at No. 37 in the top 100. Is that simply based on sales?

Also, as an aside, can you perhaps recommend any books or texts that deal with hand/line formation from a biological/morphological point of view?

Wanderer78 wrote:Ah yes, I've seen that actually. Are there only 5 books in the controversial section?

Just a few things:

It might be interesting to see if there are any more detailed commentaries on what makes them controversial.

Not surprising to see the ol' Comte on there. I've read in numerous places that he has been discredited, though mostly as a result of plagiarizing. Though he also appears at No. 37 in the top 100. Is that simply based on sales?

Also, as an aside, can you perhaps recommend any books or texts that deal with hand/line formation from a biological/morphological point of view?

Many thanks!

Wanderer78

Hi Wanderer78,

Regarding your first question, I can recommend the book 'http://books.google.nl/books?id=3pzhaonObMMC&' (the online version is available via the link).

And yes, the Amazon rankings of the books are based on sales rank only - for this reason I introduced the voting-system in order to provide some indication about the popularity of the books among the hand reading experts regarding the content of the books.

So the TOP 100 project presents an overview of the most popular book by sales rank, and additionally the expert votes are added below (based on 28 experts).

I decided to present only 5 titles under the header 'controversial books' ... simply because there so far there appears to be little agreement among the experts regarding which books should be avoided, resulting in that only 5 titles so far have received at least two 'thumb down' votes without having at least two 'thumb up' votes.

The reason there is no such list is because there are thousands and thousands of terrible books on hands, terrible because they plagiarise earlier works, terrrible because they re-hash old fifteenth century ideas without any thought and consideration and terrible because they contain lies and/or disinformation. There is no point in making a list of these books - there are too many of them !

Even the 'good' authors wrote some terrible books - Benham's second book on Vocations from the hand is hardly read by anybody, but it is truly an awful book, entirely speculative and containing nothing of handreading value. Actually, if we are going to be critical of Benham, the whole second half of his 'Laws of Scientific Handerading' is also pretty poor - even if only for the fact that he provides no illustrations of the extraordinary line formations that he talks about, so much so that you can't be sure that he is not making them up.

Then there are works that are considered to be 'good' but are also equally terrible due to the fact that they are based on spurious psychologising - for example Arnold Holtzman's Psycho Diagnostic Chirology, or similar works by people like Yael Haft Pomrock. Or those which are written by intelligent authors but are terrible because of the spurious assertions and connections that they make, such as Dylan Warren-Davis in his astrological palmistry book 'The Hand Reveals'.

Two of the most important authors in the history of handreading are Noel Jaquin and Charlotte Wolff - but it is very hard not to describe at least one or two of their books as 'terrible' - Jaquin for over-simplifying things to get his book published and Wolff over-complicating things to make her works seem more scientific than they are.

Its a challenge to enumerate more than five books on hands that are not terrible in some way or another, but I think all discerning handreaders could agree that the following books contain fewer flaws or issues than most (not in any particular order):

1) The Palmist's Companion, Andrew Fitzherbert2) The Book of the Hand, Fred Gettings3) The Spellbinding Power of Palmistry, Johnny Fincham4) Studies in Handreading, Charlotte Wolff5) Your Palm, Barometer of Health, David Brandon-Jones6) Hand Psychology, Andrew Fitzherbert

Of course, there are many other books which you could also include in this list, but many of them have not ever been published.

I also wanted to say that I absolutely loved your "History of Handreading". As a student of history (currently pursuing my MA in it), I found it thorough and very well written.

On a personal level, it helped to alleviate some concern I had over a bad palm reading I received at a party last year; wherein a girl told me that I would only live until 65 and that I would have heart troubles. She said this was based on the number of rascettes I had - though curiously enough she did not count the first one - something I've not been able to find in ANY sources (much to my chagrin).

Your account of 15th century palmistry with its focus on death and fate led me to believe that she had read a book coming out of that tradition (and she admitted that it was from an older book, which she did not name, because she felt traditional palmistry was more "interesting" than modern palmistry)...so when I read what you wrote about such a thing being the equivalent of asking a GP to "leech" someone it put things into perspective for me. Not to mention reading about Ludwig Lutz being the first to use the rascettes in a such a way.

Anyway, it was a real help. Thank you for writing it!

Perhaps what motivates me in asking about the bad books is to, in part, locate which book she got such nonsense from, and to avoid others like it.

You're welcome 'wanderer'. Glad you enjoyed the History of Handreading and found it useful as well as interesting. I have a Masters degree in Philosophy & Theology (rather than History) and my academic prowess probably peaked around the time I was researching all those palmistry books! So I am glad it came across as well written.

I have just recently updated my www.cheirology.net website with a lot of other historical material which you may find of interest - including PDF versions of some of the original source material. Have a read of the Digby Roll in particular for a good example of mediaeval palmestrie.

As to the book that palmist got her interpretation from, who knows. It could have been from any number of books - so many authors just copy each other !

Wanderer78 wrote:Your account of 15th century palmistry with its focus on death and fate led me to believe that she had read a book coming out of that tradition (and she admitted that it was from an older book, which she did not name, because she felt traditional palmistry was more "interesting" than modern palmistry)...so when I read what you wrote about such a thing being the equivalent of asking a GP to "leech" someone it put things into perspective for me. Not to mention reading about Ludwig Lutz being the first to use the rascettes in a such a way.

Hi Wanderer,I'm glad you have at last found peace of mind and a confirmation of what we had told you, in Christopher's information.

Christopher Jones wrote:You're welcome 'wanderer'. Glad you enjoyed the History of Handreading and found it useful as well as interesting. I have a Masters degree in Philosophy & Theology (rather than History) and my academic prowess probably peaked around the time I was researching all those palmistry books! So I am glad it came across as well written.

I have just recently updated my www.cheirology.net website with a lot of other historical material which you may find of interest - including PDF versions of some of the original source material. Have a read of the Digby Roll in particular for a good example of mediaeval palmestrie.

As to the book that palmist got her interpretation from, who knows. It could have been from any number of books - so many authors just copy each other !

Hi Christopher,

The updates on your website are very useful and I am sure that these include many other fascinating details + thank you for adding the link to this forum!

I will include a short review for your website in the next month's forum newsletter (februari) - featured with a link to your website, etc.

hi Wanderer, I'm not sure if I ever replied to you before. I read all your posts and really felt for your angst about that woman's prediction. I was furious that she had planted such a scary seed of thought in your mind! Bad enough to count years of life from rascettes, but I wonder where on earth did she get the idea to discount the first rascette, I've never read such a thing?!? And how did she come by such a random number as 65, given that rascettes in ye olde superstitious nonsense palmestrie were 25 - 30 years each?? By that reckoning & her method, with my single rascette if I discount the first one, I should have departed this world about 25-30 years ago, but I'm still here, YAY Like the other replies here, I am so glad your mind has been put at rest over this ridiculous prediction, and you can get on with enjoying your life, and learning some genuine, real accurate stuff about handreading! (where's the 'high five' icon )

back to your original question, it is good to see that Christopher (my hand analysis tutor around 1996? - 1999) has not lost any of his critical skills He's right, bad palmistry books are too numerous to mention!

Christopher - great to see that you are updating your site, and that you included a link to this forum

I myself have also wondered how she arrived at that number. It's actually been part of what gave me such a hang up about this. I can only presume that she made this up as part of her "unique" method. The whole thing was just SO weird part of me thought, "Wow. Is there actually something to it? Could a rational person actually make this stuff up?"

To add insult to injury, when questioned about it, and when I mentioned that from everything I've read she was in the wrong - both in method and ethics (I even cited Benham, Richard Webster and a few other sources), she seemed nonplussed. She merely replied that she'd read dozens of books, given presentations and read palms for years, and that I was the first to bring this up as an issue. And lastly, that I needed to realize that it doesn't matter how long one lives but how well. Fair enough, BUT such predictions can and do interfere with ones quality of life. Made me think that there was something inherently wrong with me and it was reflected in my palms.

Curiously enough, when I told her that my research had led me to believe that the rascette thing was today considered more part of the Eastern Indian tradition, she seemed surprised and said that made sense because she had studied "Karmic palmistry" - of which I've only seen one book (Jon St. Germain) and nowhere does it mention anything of the sort! Unless there is something I missed...

As an aside, I do think that she is one of those types who use spirituality as a weapon though, and then when they do cause harm, say it's because of the other person. Incidentally, the same girl on another occasion, upon learning that my area of academic research is Old Norse and Viking History, claimed that the Norse goddess Freyja was her "patron goddess" and that "the gods" speak to her. Later still she began studying the Old Norse language online and one day began texting me these horrible curses in Old Norse. Altogether too creepy. lol.

I'm not one to be taken in so easily, but life circumstances and her casual attitude about it all combined to just drive a wedge of fear into my psyche. I had always had a healthy respect and skepticism about palmistry but this event made me both fear and question it. And thus I was thankfully led to this website. And I am so very grateful for all the kind assistance and valuable information I've gotten from the members here. It has helped me come to make peace with the idea that she is a sad individual who unfortunately, needs to get attention by making others feel bad. It has also helped me learn more, apart from my own research, what palmistry/hand analysis is really all about.

"she seemed nonplussed. She merely replied that she'd read dozens of books, given presentations and read palms for years, and that I was the first to bring this up as an issue."

I've come across this kinda attitude too. eg years ago at a psychic fair I was really excited cos I saw a very unusual feature on a hand (can't remember what, maybe a tented arch or radial loop on apollo finger) something I knew nothing about. I went round the other palmists and asked them, received very similar replies to what this lady told you. They hadn't a clue what I was talking about! I realised that they all lived in their own worlds of self-validation and hadn't actually studied much handreading at all!

"Karmic palmistry" - of which I've only seen one book (Jon St. Germain)

me too, I don't know of any other school of karmic palmistry.

spirituality as a weapon though, and then when they do cause harm, say it's because of the other person.

yep, I have come across this too!

the Norse goddess Freyja was her "patron goddess" and that "the gods" speak to her.

Of course people have their own beliefs, but sometimes it comes across as bizarre - Years ago, we had two separate, unrelated people in the same week who told us that their spirit guide was St Francis of Assisi, what a coincidence!

texting me these horrible curses in Old Norse.

well that's not a good sign of a stable person is it? It all sounds like HER problem/insecurities that she was projecting onto you, by trying to appear more powerful than she really feels. (?)I hope that wedge of fear has well and truly gone! Don't apologise, it wasn't an essay, thank you for sharing your experience with us, I'm sure it can be of help to others too. I'm happy that people at this forum have been able to help you.